LEUTZE, EMANUEL (1816-1868), American artist, was born
at Gmünd, Württemberg, on the 24th of May 1816, and as a
child was taken by his parents to Philadelphia, where he early
displayed talent as an artist. At the age of twenty-five he had
earned enough to take him to Düsseldorf for a course of art study
at the royal academy. Almost immediately he began the painting
of historical subjects, his first work, "Columbus before the
Council of Salamanca," being purchased by the Düsseldorf Art
Union. In 1860 he was commissioned by the United States
Congress to decorate a stairway in the Capitol at Washington,
for which he painted a large composition, "Westward the Star
of Empire takes its Way." His best-known work, popular
through engraving, is "Washington crossing the Delaware,"
a large canvas containing a score of life-sized figures; it is now
owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He
became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1860,
and died at Washington, D.C., on the 18th of July 1868